Game 2: Rangers at Penguins … It’s Go Time!

Ya boys play the fifth of what will have been an absurd six games in nine nights after tomorrow’s Game 3 in New York.

The Rangers look to snap all their negative strings tonight:

As you are well aware, the Rangers have failed, nine times in a a row, with chances to take a two-game lead in a series, and have lost an NHL record 12 in a row when leading a playoff series. They also haven’t gone up 2-0 in a series since 2009 vs. Washington and, well, we all know how that turned out. They have lost seven consecutive Game 2s, four of those after winning Game 1.

Alain Vigneault goes with the same lineup, meaning Henrik Lundqvist in goal (duh), Daniel Carcillo in, and J.T. Miller, Jesper Fast, Justin Falk and Raphael Diaz prucha’d. Chris Kreider (hand surgery) continues to skate in a non-contact jersey and is not yet taking full shots, so he remains out indefinitely.

One switch, though: Vigneault used Anton Stralman on the power-play point, in John Moore’s spot, during the morning skate.

Talking a minute ago on the NHL Network about Rick Nash, Jeremy Roenick stated the obvious that the big man continues to play too much out on the perimeter. Roenick’s better insight on Nash’s playoff problems was that the Nash is going about his business in the playoffs as if these are regular season games. He is not upping his game at all and I am someone who, until Nash convinces me otherwise, thinks he might not have the internal drive to do so. Outside the game with Columbus, I don’t recall another instance where Nash played with a heartbeat that would indicate fire in his belly. Hate to say it but he may never be that kind of player.

They were hiding behind hay bales
They were planting in the full moon
They had given all they had for something new
But the light of day was on them
They could see the thrashers coming
The water shone like diamonds in the dew

Blatant interference by a Penguin in their own zone as they were coming up the ice, Zuccarello with a bad decision in the neutral zone, and Girardi acting like a small child hopping on a slip’n’slide. Sounds like a recipe for a Peguins goal!

Be nice to get back in this game, but it’s looking as though Lundqvist is going to spend it all tonight in a losing cause. Will make tomorrow interesting. Hope the Penguins are tiring themselves out just as much.

These NBC announcers really xxx! Doesn’t a drought mean there was at one point no drought? Nash has virtually never scored in the playoffs. Despite my dislike of Crosby at least he does have a history of scoring…

Pretend you were handed a video showing every chance for Pitt right up until the shot and were asked to guess how many goals they had that period. Low end is 3, right? If we win, Henrik stole it in the 2nd.

I have three points if like to make tonite if I may:
1 we are getting absolutely alarmingly manhandled
2 we are the worst passing team in NHL history – I’ve seen better connections on a rocky driveway with an orange Burger King puck
3 trying to get onto this site on an IPhone is the worst in sports history- really Carp it’s time for you to fire some propellor heads

Orr:
I was always curious how Nash is called a “power forward”. Where’s the power? He glides most of the time, does not hit. Short shifts and looks winded. Totally get he was concussed but even when he first came to NY, so unimpressive

Honestly, I am not surprised at all. Pittsburgh had to come out and play like this. The cannot afford to go down 0-2. What is disappointing is our failure to push back. Keep in mind……if we had a marginally-successful power play we are at least tied, and probably ahead in a game in which we have played like crap. I hope this is not fatigue-related. It looks like some of our guys don’t have their legs.

The thing about the “three failed power plays” is that if NY scored on the first one, I doubt they would have gotten another, let alone two more. So yeah, it was a critical failure, but they didn’t do enough the rest of the game to win anyway.

Yawn, didn’t even have the intensity of a November game. A word about embellishment- if Girardi embellishes on Neal’s hook with five or so minutes to go, maybe Neal gets called instead of him. How about Kunitz reacting to Dorsett’s hit as if he’d been shot from the grassy knoll… no sense complaining I guess. I was going to try and come up with some points on the game but I’m determined not to work harder at that then the team does at playing. No sense of urgency, doesn’t begin to cover it. Guess we’re in the “dog” series again- some coincidence.

4-4 record with McCauley during the season and 0-2 in playoffs…………not a good bump by dorsett, but first time all night a pp was given on an after whistle play……neal, Crosby malkin and Kuntz all game without a call…….embellishment should’ve been called or did #4 forget how to call it……

MAF had a shutout? Do you really get credit for a shutout like that? They could have used a cardboard cutout (that’s what we told our goalie in the old days when he boasted about his shutout- stopped the only shot he faced, so I guess in a way he was right).

Henk’s best game in months. that could have been 7-0 if he wasnt playing lights out. we will need that from him tomorrow night as well.
Got the split, need to cash in on PP
schedule hurts speed game, but still had chances
for the life of me, why does nash pass when he is 10 fn ft dead center from goal
stage fright…and the water is not cold